John Adams by David McCullough Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of John Adams
Book Review: A fascinating look at our second President
Summary: 4 Stars
Fortunately for modern readers, John Adams was one of the most prolific writers of his times. His letters to his family, particularly his wife Abigail, as well as letters to other public figures form a basis for the writing of this book. It is fascinating to read his public writings in light of the happenings of his time, and then read his private letters which reveal candidly his true thoughts.
Adams was a consummate New Englander--thrifty, hard-working, and very much involved in life around him. He would have happily remained a farmer, but for the events which swirled around him. He could not stand by and watch the British bully America, and he was one of the earliest and strongest proponents of independence. When the war was won, Adams continued his public life as a diplomat in France, the Netherlands, and England. His dogged determination and a refusal to compromise his integrity sometimes got him into trouble with foreign governments, but his judgment was usually proven to be correct. His relationships with other notables of the Federalist period, especially Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, were fascinating. Though his absences from home were long and difficult, he maintained a loving relationship with his wife Abigail, and took one or the other of his sons with him on his government assignments, when possible. His eldest son, John Quincy, especially thrived by being a close observer to important historical events and people. This later served him well when he was elected the sixth U.S. President. Although sometimes the details in the book become a little tedious, overall this is a most interesting read.
Book Review: A fine Biography of a Great American
Summary: 5 Stars
David McCullough has done a great service to the memory of John Adams and to all who are fortunate enough to read this biography.With so many other reviews posted here I wanted to mention an aspect I found fascinating about the book: The contrast depicted between John Adams and two other prominent Founding Fathers - Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. These three worked together frequently and prominently as the United States was being created, yet they were quite dissimilar except for their commitment to the success of American Independence. Adams was a pious, hard-working New Englander - a stark contrast to the Benjamin Franklin who was a generation older, not particularly religious, fond of his leisure time, and with an eye for the ladies, even in his later years. The Northerner Adams thought slavery evil, yet was able to reconcile his personal feelings ably enough to develop a fond life-long friendship and working relationship with the slave-owning Virginian Jefferson. One of the most enjoyable portions of this book is the depiction of the two former Presidents in their later years, trading correspondence about the "good old days" after reconciling from a feud which was likely precipitated by the Mischief-causing Hamilton.
This book is a pleasure to read and unless you are already a Revolutionary Scholar of the highest order, you'll learn a few things as well.
I recommend it highly.
Book Review: A great contribution to history
Summary: 5 Stars
Dr. McCullough has continued his roll. ADAMS is another effort which, though scholarly, is prosaic enough to rivet almost any undergraduate to a library chair on drown night. The Professor emphasizes that Adams was honest almost to a fault. McCullough also debunks some of the idolatry surround Adams's colleagues, namely Jefferson. He also includes just the right amount of gossip: Franklin's chess playing with bathing francaises, and the President's response to his son's drunkeness (Adams eighty-sixed him) were particularly well placed. A splendid mixture overall.Book Review: A new way to compute our moral Calculus
Summary: 5 Stars
First of all this book is a tribute to the author's fine abilities as a thinker and writer. As he did in "1776," he brings all of his considerable skills to bear on a single problem: to plumb the depths of the humanity and the human spirit of a bygone era. His primary database is a scant one: the love letters of these two incredible protagonists. This makes his task more difficult, but by no means impossible. The author has a choice and sees it clearly: to do as most historians do, "over-determine" and "over-shoot," thus caricaturing the humanity of his subjects, and then end up issuing forth more romanticize but unbelievable pabulum -- that is, just further mindless mythologizing of our founding fathers -- or else stay true to the only "vapor trail" he has available to him: the letters; and then to "milk them" until he has finally unraveled the full moral and human complexity that those data leave as the only available evidence.
We must be forever grateful to David McCollugh's considerable talents that he chose to do the latter. As a result, we get to see behind the screen, and behind the scenes: a private view, as it were, of how human and moral sausage is made with "the old recipe." We get to watch as the author use the letters between "John" and "Abigail" to reconstruct and fashion an exquisitely delicate and finely balanced human choreographed dance, one that we are unlikely to ever see again.
Perhaps it is unfair and might be considered hitting a bit below the belt to suggest that we do the same for a random selection of our own contemporaries (as I did, in passing, and in preparation for Tom Hanks HBO miniseries based on this book) with the Clintons and the Reagans. For the Clintons, I reviewed the books "Primary Colors," "Partners in Power," and "The Secret Lives of Bill Clinton." For the Reagans, I used "I Love You Ronnie;" "My Turn: The Memoirs of Nancy Reagan;" and Patti Davis Reagan's "The Way I See it."
From these books, the most that can be said about either the Clintons or the Reagans is that they engaged in "moral window-dressing." No one knows where their moral centers are, or even if they had one. No one knows, including themselves, morally what they would stand or fall for. As people, on the surface, they were all just a bit too nice. The Reagans seemed to have always had one foot in the moral past and the other in moral quicksand. The Clintons at all times seemed "for sale" to the highest bidders. To say that they were all morally confused about where to lead this country would be an understatement.
John Adams, as a personality was no walk in the park either. He was an irascible SOB. But morally he was not the least bit confused. He knew slavery was wrong and that he could have benefited from it at no cost to himself. He defended the Brits who mowed down the Colonists in the Boston Massacre because he knew it was the right thing for the new nation to do, and that it could not endure without the moral character and strength to do so. So he was a mean SOB, but was not confused about who he was, or about what the moral imperatives for the new nation were. He had a moral compass and he used it. It was nothing personal, just a way of life for him.
The trick for understanding the true temper of any times is finally revealed in this book. It is a trick that now illustrates why Roger Wilkins' "Jefferson's Pillow" did not work out as Wilkins had intended it to; a trick that makes me understand why it seems almost sacrosanct to compare our contemporary politicians with those of Adams' era: one cannot make the mistake of substituting into "today's moral equations" yesterday's "humanity and morality." For over the last two centuries the equation itself has changed; the moral and human imperatives have changed; the very constants and the variables have changed; the context has changed; the character and purpose of our institutions have all changed; our society has changed: In short, the very quality of both our morality and our humanity has changed. And, unfortunately, except for nostalgia and romanticization, everything seems to have drifted downwards.
Before McCollugh, most of American history had become boring, a lot of thinly veiled "special-pleading" -- hollow appeals to return to the morality of a bygone era that was never really there anyway. Like this book, theirs too took creative license, but theirs was a different kind of fiction: Historians, before McCollugh, tried, with great desperation, to recapture with hyperbole, nostalgia, mythologizing and romanticization what they thought was lost but in fact was never ever really there. McCollugh's shows us how to again stand up on our own moral hind legs and look at the world eye-to-eye: through a new set of glasses, that are not rose tinted. Amen, and fifty stars!
Book Review: A very human biography of a great patriot
Summary: 4 Stars
This book isn't really for legal scholars, serious historians or those interested in Adams' writings. It is, however, a very well written personal biography of a great figure in American history with a special emphasis on trying to understand the hows and whys of Adams, how he responded to criticism, how he came to conclusions, why he made the decisions he came to etc...It is difficult to provide enough color sometimes when presenting such a 'long' life and McCullough I am sure had difficulty deciding when to slow the narrative to dwell on important events when there were so many to choose from. All and all, a very solid, thoughtful mainstream work.
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